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How My Views on Evolution Evolved

How My Views on Evolution Evolved

How My Views on Evolved

by Richard Sternberg

I am an evolutionary biologist with interests in the relation between and morphological homologies, and the nature of genomic “information.” I hold a Ph.D. in Biology () from International University and a Ph.D. in Systems Science (Theoretical Biology) from Binghamton University. From 2001- 2007, I served as a staff scientist at the National Center for Biotechnology Informa- tion and a Research Associate at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History (NMNH). I am presently a research scientist at the , sup- ported by a research fellowship from ; I am also a Research Collaborator at the NMNH. More information about my research and background is available at my website, www.richardsternberg.com.

I began my university education in the early meditating on the works of Friedrich Nietszche: 1980s as a committed Darwinian undergraduate His writings appeared prophetic, for not only had who was a strong opponent of young earth crea- he accurately diagnosed in my opinion the disease tionism. As a teenager I was repelled by the strain (the “Last Man syndrome” you could call it) of fundamentalist Christianity that surrounded me whose societal symptoms were (and are) every- in the deep South: the anti-intellectualism, the where to be seen, but he had also foreseen the cultural flatness, and the pessimistic fatalism that major intellectual trends of the twentieth century. seemed then to go with the former two. Equally And then I ran across ’s The revolting to me was the accommodationism that Selfish and mentally devoured it. By the age I saw in the post-Vatican II Roman Catholic Church, that usually took the form of Liberation By the age of twenty, I was an Theology on the one hand or a bourgeois moral- intellectually fulfilled atheist. ism on the other. Like some of my peers, I was actively searching for an integrated picture of the of twenty, I was an intellectually fulfilled atheist world and I just could not find it in what passed like Dawkins. for Christianity. Having had a lifelong interest in all things Then three eye-opening events occurred that biological—my goal as a child was to become an led me to , and immediately thereafter ichthyologist—I decided to pursue a bachelors to an implicit . For one thing, I read Dar- degree in the biological sciences at the University win’s Origin of and found myself con- of South Carolina. As an undergraduate I took as vinced—or mostly convinced—that the author many courses having to do with evolutionary the- had made his case. For another, I started ory as I possibly could, and it was there that I HOW MY VIEWS ON EVOLUTION EVOLVED STERNBERG 2 developed to an art a most dangerous habit. I the emergence of new taxonomic groups. It was as would spend hours in the library reading. Not just if Lancelot Law Whyte’s Internal Factors in required materials mind you, but heretical Evolution and Goldschmidt’s and Schindewolf’s volumes; and not just your run-of-the-mill books notions of “hopeful monsters,” had been validated that presented some crankish ideas, but the strong by McClintock’s discovery of “jumping genes.” I plain-brown-wrapper stuff—literature that posed found her ideas to be exciting, to say the least. No hardcore, sophisticated challenges to the Darwin- one else seemed to, though. Professors, maybe in ism that I had so casually imbibed. an attempt to curb my enthusiasm, provided me Day after day, and sometimes night after night when I wasn’t out and about, my attention turned If what Goldschmidt… and many to ’s The Material Basis of others were saying had empirical Evolution and Theoretical ; Hugo de backing, then I had to seriously Vries’s The Theory and Species and rethink my position with respect Varieties: Their Origin by Mutation; Søren to Darwinian Theory. Løvtrup’s Epigenetics: A Treatise on Theoretical Biology and Darwinism: The Refutation of a with papers wherein hypotheses were proposed Myth; to name only a handful. None of the authors that made any “smart ” a theoretical im- were creationists and none to my knowledge ever possibility. Copies of the 1980 papers—“Selfish mentioned the G-word, but all were evolutionists genes, the phenotype paradigm and genome evo- who were critical of Darwinism and, given their lution” by W. F. Doolittle and C. Sapienza, and backgrounds in genetics and embryology, able to “Selfish DNA: the ultimate parasite” by L. E. outline in detail why the “facts” that I “knew to be Orgel and F. Crick, both back-to-back in true” were either misinterpreted or simply errone- Nature—presented the argument that McClin- ous. Who needed Penthouse? tock’s jumping genes and all the other repetitive Now this self-exposure to the banned DNA along , had no function doctrines of and Saltationism, whatsoever. Excess DNA, ultimately the Aristogenesis and , and accidental by-product of replication, could prolif- even Teilhardism, was initially only for the satis- erate by stealth because it has little or no effect on faction of prurient intellectual desires. But like all the workings of the cell. unchecked inordinate leanings, I needed more. The problem with McClintock’s hypothesis of Not for idle curiosity, mind you, but for the a unified genome, so I was told, is the assumption deeper reason that if what Goldschmidt and she made that most of the, say, 98% or so of Schindewolf and Croizat and Lima-de-Faria and human sequences not belonging to many others were saying had empirical backing, the gene category, are functional and thus have a then I had to seriously rethink my position with phenotypic effect when shuffled around. The respect to Darwinian Theory. evolutionary genetic model of the genome is, in Other factors were also goading me to pursue contrast, basically an aggregate of semi- this line of investigation. The 1980s were a time autonomous, independently segregating, and of upheaval in biology. So many revolutionary “selfish” units arranged like beads on a string. positions were being staked out in that decade— You can rearrange those beads without conse- like pattern —that I lack the space to quence, and the strings in between are just filler. mention them. Two, however, stand out in terms No integrated system there. So there was of their influence on my thinking. McClintock on one side, and the selfish DNA First, I read Barbara McClintock’s 1983 No- theorists on the other side. I chose McClintock. bel Lecture where she expressed her view that the Throwing academic caution to the wind, I decided genome is a responsive organelle that can be to study the functions of “junk DNA” despite “shocked” into reorganization, thereby leading to being told that it was a futile search.

HOW MY VIEWS ON EVOLUTION EVOLVED STERNBERG 3 This brings me to the second event. The 1988 were constantly brought to my attention for reme- Science paper by John Cairns and colleagues on diation: my lack of focus, my reading and think- the evidence for Lamarckian-like directed (non- ing too much, my not applying myself (in the right random) in bacteria made its way into way), and my ceaseless reviewing of data instead my hands. (Remember, I had become a serious of gathering it. True, all manifestly true. It was literature junkie.) What struck me about the article academically a very maladaptive strategy, to was not the case it laid out for internally-oriented borrow a Darwinian phrase. My peers, in contrast, genetic changes; no, it was the controversy that it were single-minded and sanely found the prob- lematica that interested me to be a waste of time. Fortunately, a few friends who were undergradu- ate and graduate students in the Department of Philosophy were only too happy to discuss theo- retical biology with me over beers—they were my enablers. Nonetheless, given today’s standards, I was still far from the slippery slope with respect to evolutionary theory. My views then would have fitted broadly within what is now labeled “self- organization theory.” And I was more than willing to publicly defend evolutionism from various sparked. By all accounts, Cairns et alia were creationist attacks. wrong—really, really wrong. The best that could be said, some asserted, was that some statistical error had crept into the analysis, whereas others FAST forwarding a bit, the early 1990s found pointed out that directed mutations were me in a new state (Florida) and at a different state impossible in principle. For biased and adaptive university (Florida International University), DNA changes raised the spectre of teleology and where I would earn my Ph.D. in biology that, thankfully, had been defeated by Darwin. (molecular evolution) in 1995. My reasons for By the late 1980s, then, and while still at the choosing FIU were numerous: The campus in University of South Carolina, all my mental ener- Miami was (and is) beautiful, it was relatively gies were being consumed by such topics as the close to the ocean, I could combine field and lab functionalities of junk DNA, and directed or (as it research, and I had the explicit go-ahead to study is now termed) . I also read all my beloved junk DNA. that I could on the nuclear matrix; chromosome While there I compiled enough data from the organization; genetic phenomena such as “trans- literature to convince me that the so-called excess vection,” “position effects,” and “paramutation”; and non-coding sequences in are func- and so forth. My professors were quite disap- tional, nay multifunctional, and thus that they pointed in me because I did not exert myself contain codes at many levels. And although still a where I should have: at the bench. strict DNA reductionist—I had no problem The name of the game then as well as now is accepting the premise that the development and to produce publishable data, usually by studying a of the marine shrimps whose problem that is readily tractable in the laboratory. nucleotides I studied were specified by the I, on the other hand, wanted to think about out- genome—my interest shifted to, of all things, standing theoretical issues and I frankly found taxonomy. Why? Well, I wanted to relate phylo- doable research projects—the kind that make a genetic changes in chromosomal sequences, graduate student successful—boring. Only too repetitive DNA to be exact, with morphological stingingly obvious were all the faults of mine that transitions in shrimps.

HOW MY VIEWS ON EVOLUTION EVOLVED STERNBERG 4 The difficulty was that the leading systema- (my words) developmental processes. Evolution tists who worked on “my” shrimps had no evolu- from this position is therefore the differential em- tionary trees to offer me. Yet where some see bodiment of attractors over time. My dialogue crisis others see opportunity, and so I slowly with Stan convinced me that I did not need to try began to learn how to tell a telson from a uropod, to reduce morphology to DNA, as they were both and a petasma from a regular pleopod endopod. ontologically significant at their respective levels. But looking at as wholes—actually I was almost simultaneously introduced to the holding them and turning those over and noting ideas of , Gerry Webster, Peter homologies—began to affect my way of thinking. Saunders, and René Thom, and I delved into the No longer could I see the specimen as an epiphe- writings of Robert Rosen, who had suggested to nomenon of DNA, as I had been implicitly trained me Binghamton University as place where the to do; rather, I began to see the preserved shrimps freedom to explore new theoretical ideas might as entities in their own right, regardless of still exist (he was right). I was in a wholly differ- whether the blueprint for them was in the DNA. ent conceptual realm. Even so, I knew from repeated trips to the heresy store that buying in bulk is expensive, and thus I No sooner had I set out than I layered onto my working thesis (that self-- found myself out on the izing genomes give rise to ordered trends in evo- lution) the proviso that morphology is real albeit a conceptual ocean with no genetic “output.” Hence, the question for me Darwinian shoreline in sight— became: How to relate the genome and three- and like the crew and passengers dimensional form? Little did I know that this one of the ill-fated SS Minnow on question would move me straight to a conceptual Gilligan’s Island, my “three- No Man’s Land. By late 1995 I was located at Binghamton hour tour” landed me on an University where I began to spend all of my uncharted archipelago of ideas. waking hours on the problem of how DNA relates to morphology. At Binghamton (where I would The second influence came in the form of the earn a Ph.D. in theoretical biology in 1998) I was works of the so-called idealistic morphologists. able to study under some of the best minds in For years I had read about how bad these guys systems theory and theoretical biology, and I were, and how they were dangerous creationists— began to converse with men such as the late, great this was the spin, now known to be highly mis- Ron Brady. Aside from George Klir, who to me leading, that Ernst Mayr and other New Synthesis was then and still is genius personified, and the framers used to dismiss their ideas. I read Naef estimable Howard Pattee, two influences on my and Troll and Goethe, to name just some. So by thinking stand out. 1997, my thinking was far, far beyond where it First, I met the apostate Darwinian Stan had been just a few short years earlier. As an Salthe, an evolutionary biologist who challenged exercise and since I could, I deliberately set sail my still latent molecular and who theoretically, meaning that my aim was to see introduced me to a radically structuralist way of morphology and the genome from the standpoint thinking about organismal form. In a D’Arcy of a rather hard structuralism. This seemed at the Thompson-like fashion, he called my attention to time like an intellectual pleasure cruise, and my the fact that many material systems have complex thinking was that I could always go back to the organizations and undergo transformations in the reductionism that I had embraced earlier. But no absence of anything like a genome. Then he intro- sooner had I set out than I found myself out on the duced me to the concept of a “structural attractor”: conceptual ocean with no Darwinian shoreline in an unchanging type of final cause that informs sight—and like the crew and passengers of the ill-

HOW MY VIEWS ON EVOLUTION EVOLVED STERNBERG 5 fated SS Minnow on Gilligan’s Island, my “three- 2001 I accepted the position and remained there hour tour” landed me on an uncharted archipelago (later as a Staff Scientist) for just over six years. I of ideas where I’ve resided in solitude now for also became a Research Associate at the National over 10 years. Still, I carried out empirical Museum of Natural History. Shortly thereafter I research on the relationships of the world’s fresh- was asked whether I would mind being the editor water crabs, and I had no difficulty reconciling of the Proceedings of the Biological Society of my newly found views with phylogenetic investi- . I was cool about the proposition for a gations. It was this research that led me to the host of reasons—it was, after all, a thankless task Smithsonian. that involved work but no pay. It would also cut Upon completion of the work that was to be into my research time. Nevertheless, for reasons my second Ph.D. dissertation in 1998, I recall one that now seem horribly vague, I said yes. Little of my committee members telling me that if I was did I know that my acceptance of the role would not careful, I was going to lapse into . have such a lasting impact on the course my Seeing as I had no interest in creationism, and would take. seeing as my thoughts had I had only a cursory knowledge no congruence with any kind of prior to 2004, of creation narrative, I could while working at the NIH and con- only laugh at his warning. ducting research at the Smithsonian. “Intelligent design,” mean- On the one hand, I knew that various while, was almost com- paleontologists and systematists of pletely off my conceptual the past who were, if you will, proto- radar—it was only around structuralists, men such as Louis 1999 that I first encountered Agassiz and Wilhelm Troll, had no the modern version of the problem relating their “types” to idea. Ideas in the Divine Mind. So I found the concept intriguing from that per- AT the beginning of spective. On the other hand, I found 2000, I began my postdoc- the concept of Behe’s “irreducible toral fellowship in the Division of Crustacea at the complexity” to not be problematic since—no Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural longer a reductionist—I saw every layer of History, to work on the phylogeny of brachyuran biological organization to be irreducible to lower- crabs. Then in November of that year I was level components, regardless of how it evolved. informed that a position was available in What I could not do, however, was make the GenBank—a computerized repository of DNA conceptual leap from the observation of, say, fish sequences—at the National Center for Biotech- light organs, to an assertion of the existence of a nology Information, part of the National Institutes designer. That is to say, I withdrew from the of Health, and I was encouraged to apply. The “inference to the best explanation.” position was that of an invertebrate taxonomist. The topic of intelligent design did The job entailed receiving electronic files of DNA occasionally arise among my colleagues in the sequences from organisms that were not repre- museum where, at the time, one could discuss the sented in the “tree,” a phylogeny-like hierarchy. matter rather dispassionately; and I did have That meant identifying where a species belongs in infrequent interactions with a couple of intelligent the scheme of things and placing it in the appro- design proponents. As a consequence, I was priate branch. The way the job was structured was invited in 2002 to present a talk on formal causa- that half of one’s working time could be spent on tion to a small research conference of scientists research, and the other half on the database. interested in ID. I agreed because I wanted to see It seemed like an ideal job. In February of whether proponents of intelligent design could

HOW MY VIEWS ON EVOLUTION EVOLVED STERNBERG 6 present any sound scientific hypotheses. Still, the pass without reflection. As managing editor, I whole topic for me was a rather “back burner” regarded the Meyer work as within my sphere of issue: one that I was not hostile to and yet knowledge and I was interested to see whether it certainly not sold on. I was of course aware that would stand up to scrutiny. So I asked three the design topic has been with us since biologists and a geologist to review the manu- Anaxagoras and undoubtedly before, and I also script—all of whom I knew to be neither young thought that hurling expletives at those who earth creationists nor neo-Darwinians nor affili- wanted to talk rationally about the subject was ated with the Discovery Institute nor particularly only an attempt to shut down thousands of years sympathetic to the Intelligent design position. I of discourse concerning the matter. An emphasis of the course was THEN in early 2004 I was contacted by Steve that it is unethical to shelve papers Meyer who told me that he had a manuscript on or applications based on the the and the origin of the political affiliations of authors, higher taxonomic categories of metazoans. The central point of the paper, as I recall he told me, personal disagreements, or was the informational basis of distinctions among because an author’s/applicant’s phyla. He was considering submitting it to the views are conflict with one’s own. Proceedings, he said, whereupon I said that in order to do so, he would have to be a member of gave each the standard time allotted for such the Society. Soon thereafter—perhaps a few reviews that was specified in the letter accompa- weeks—I received copies of the manuscript and a nying the manuscript. Three reviewers responded notice that Meyer had paid his 2004 membership and were willing to review the paper; all were dues. And I read the manuscript. In the draft I had experts in relevant aspects of evolutionary and in hand, Meyer surveyed discussions among evo- and held full-time faculty posi- lutionary and theoretical biologists regarding the tions in major research institutions, one at an Ivy “origination of organismal form,” with special League university, another at a major North attention to neo-Darwinism and self-organization American public university, and the third at a theory, although structuralism was touched upon. well-known overseas research institution. I found the paper interesting because here was an After I had collected all the responses to the intelligent design proponent trying to make his Meyer manuscript, I paid close attention to the case to a scientific audience. After mulling over comments. The three agreed that the work was the situation, I decided to send it out for peer original and would generate interest. None found review. a compelling, non-ideological reason for rejecting By coincidence, I had to take a mandatory the paper, although all in their own ways made course at the NIH around that same time on the explicit their thought that Meyer’s move to intel- ethics of peer review, with respect to scientific ligent design at the end would be very controver- manuscripts and grant applications. An emphasis sial for readers. Beyond that, the three reviewers of the course was that it is unethical to shelve had distinct criticisms that each felt had to be papers or applications based on the political addressed. So I sent the manuscript and comments affiliations of authors, personal disagreements, or back to Meyer. I thought that Meyer could say because an author’s/applicant’s views are conflict “forget it” and look elsewhere, in which case the with one’s own. Moreover, the course made it whole review process would have been an illumi- transparent that you do not send manuscripts or nating exercise. Or he could make the changes, grant applications either to those you expect will the changes might be found to be adequate, and I be presumptively hostile (due to a conflict of would have to make a decision. After some interest, maybe), or to those who will give it a weeks, I received a revised manuscript that point-

HOW MY VIEWS ON EVOLUTION EVOLVED STERNBERG 7 by-point answered the critical comments, in some the museum really became nasty, I could have cases by making additions to the paper. Finally, I used a stopwatch to mark the seconds from the had a completed file before me and thus I could start of a conversation about the Meyer article, to either accept or reject the paper. the tirades about Christians, “fundies,” Republi- I decided to accept the Meyer article for pub- cans, George Bush, etc. that so often ensued. lication. Personally and professionally I had Most of these foot-stomping shouting-down nothing to gain from the appearance of the episodes I chose to avoid, for if I did not avoid paper—I was not associated with the Discovery them I would then hear a rant about abortion Institute, I had resigned from being editor of the rights and the need for stem cell research and how Proceedings back in October 2003, and only we must leave Iraq now and how the Bible is the wanted to get back to research. Nor did it seem most dangerous book ever written and how the US that I had much to lose. My thinking at the time is, was, and ever shall be the rightful home only was that, at best, the paper would generate discus- for “progressives.” Three things I could not abide, though: Rarely did anyone attack me or First, an act of legerdemain occurred through the Meyer article on the basis of the cooperation of the Biological Society of its actual content. Washington (BSW) and the National Center of (NCSE). The NCSE supplied sion and possibly even be followed up by a talking points to the BSW leadership and pushed “contra-Meyer” article: maybe a genteel debate the BSW to issue a statement that implied edito- against the backdrop of the question of the emer- rial malfeasance. Once the BSW did so, the NCSE gence of taxonomic units. The worst that could then pointed to the statement as independent con- happen, I naively thought, was that I would be firmation of wrongdoing. scolded for having published a work that some Second, government officials on government might think ventured into philosophy. And to give time using government computers were e-mailing you a measure of my miscalculations, I seriously to the world what were at best libelous rumors and believed the article would be mostly ignored: often invented tales. My attempts to provide Scientists tend to ignore works they don’t approve documentation supporting my side of the situation of and besides, the venue was the Proceedings, were suppressed. not Science or Nature. Third, after a failed attempt to have me fired Needless to say, my predicted outcomes were from the NIH—which would have succeeded had incredibly, unbelievably wrong. I won’t go into Capitol Hill not intervened—the Chair of the the details because many of the events that tran- Invertebrate Zoology Department in the museum spired are now a matter of public record. What I told me not just that I was on the wrong side of will say, however, is that rarely did anyone attack the political spectrum and thus a threat to many, me or the Meyer article on the basis of its actual but that if anything went wrong in the museum—a content—in fact, those who did read the paper manuscript missing, a purse lost or stolen: and who did object to Meyer’s case for design at anything awry—I was going to be blamed. My the end of it, tended to be civil in their correspon- research was severely curtailed and placed under dence. No: The two kinds of angry responses that the supervision of an opponent, who was given I received invariably began with a statement about complete control over what I could and could not how “the offended party” did not or refused to do, and what I could and could not write and pub- read such “pseudoscientific” or “creationist” non- lish. My keys were demanded from me, and I was sense, followed either by a denunciation of my ordered not to go back to my office—which assumed motives or how the paper was a tool of permitted the museum then to blame me for not some vast right-wing conspiracy to which I coming in to my office on a regular basis and supposedly belonged. And when the situation in adding alcohol to the specimen jars that remained

HOW MY VIEWS ON EVOLUTION EVOLVED STERNBERG 8 in there. I could go on and on. It was surreal— My response—that I look at the whole ID issue like a David Lynch of a Kafka novel. from the standpoint of neo-Pythagorean neo- With open hunting season having been Platonism—is apparently often seen as an evasion declared, I presented my case to the U.S. Office of by means of high-sounding metaphysical labels or Special Counsel (OSC). OSC attorneys found an attempt at obfuscation, judging from the coun- evidence to corroborate my claims of retaliation tenances and frowns I have received. Mine isn’t and harassment and the desired answer. But should my concluded that “[i]t is... by now annoyed and fatigued clear that a hostile work conversation partner press the environment was created point, I pour stiff drinks for us and with the ultimate goal of proceed to spell it out. forcing” me out of the It goes something like this. By Smithsonian. But the OSC “neo-Pythagorean” I mean that I could not proceed beyond think the universe—including its initial investigation every object in it and all relations because it determined that it between and among those lacked jurisdiction. Later a objects—has its basis in logico- broader investigation was mathematical structures. The rea- launched by Congressional son that mathematics is so effec- subcommittee staff, which tive in capturing, expressing, and resulted in a finding that modeling what we call empirical there was “compelling reality is that there is an evidence” that my “civil ontological correspondence and constitutional rights between the two—I would go so were violated by Smithsonian officials.” far as to say that they are the same thing. Those who want to read the gritty details of This is not to say that I naively hold that eve- what happened to me can visit my website, rything is reducible to numbers or equations, for www.richardsternberg.com. certain phenomena may participate in and thus depend upon structures and yet in some way go NOW the question that has constantly been beyond the latter. But that is beside the point. The posed to me after August 2004 goes something point is that one can spend decades working up like this: “So where do you really stand on the “formal realms” like some abstract branch of intelligent design issue?” The response that is topology, something that might seem to be of expected by the person with the query usually absolutely no scientific value whatsoever, only to must conform—so I gather—to a set of facile later find that the sets and formulae and mental categories: He or she wants to know transforms encompass not only some perplexing whether I’m actually a “fundamentalist” or not. space-time process, but even allow verifiable It’s kind of like being asked a political question predictions to be made. This is astounding. such as “Are you in favor of universal health Consider an example from biology, mollusk care?” where the rejoinder must be categorized as shells. The patterns and colors that decorate a statement for Marxism on one side, or laissez seashells are diverse but they have been shown to faire capitalism on the other. So when I answer: conform to specific logical principles, a few “Well, that depends,” and commence droning on simple and elegant mathematical rules that under- about my true views, what commonly strikes my lie the observed diversity. To me this strongly eyes is a pained look of frustration on the face of suggests that the cosmos and everything in it has a my interlocutor after he or she has moved beyond profound order, an intrinsic intelligibility. the initial yawning and blank, bored-as-hell-gaze. Through the logico-mathematical rules that

HOW MY VIEWS ON EVOLUTION EVOLVED STERNBERG 9 circumscribe all possible mollusk shell patterns or some people to my views (even after the drink has diatom “glass houses” or flower shapes or sym- been downed!). To the charge that this is all well metry groups, we can grasp the transcendent and good as metaphysics—and ancient meta- physics at that—but not science, I respond that while structures transcend the physical world, we can apprehend them through logic, mathematics, and the scientific analysis of empirical phenomena. One of my favorite examples of this appre- hension of form is documented by H. Frederik Nijhout in his 1991 book, The Development and Evolution of Butterfly Wing Patterns. Nijhout describes the independent discovery of the butter- fly wing pattern “groundplan” by the Russian B. Schwanwitsch and the German F. Süffert. Not only does this abstract nymphalid groundplan express pictorially the genetics and ontogeny of wing patterning, but it has even been formalized in such a way that predictive computer models forms behind these phenomena. Hence neo-Plato- have been generated. So from a scientific analysis nism, a philosophy that includes the existence of of the panoply of butterfly wing spots and stripes, non-historical prototypes that inform all levels of and through logic, a sort of periodic table of physical reality and determine the entities and patterns is discernible that has more than just a processes therein. The formal structures are tan- heuristic value. One need not confuse the tamount to prototypes or Platonic forms to my groundplan with a Platonic form, of course—I way of thinking. Not necessarily identical in all certainly do not—to recognize that structure has respects, but close. These forms can be under- been grasped in this instance. And this allows two stood as designs, and that is apparently how Plato things to be accomplished. On the one hand, one himself understood them. His student Aristotle, in can discuss development, evolution, and genetics the Metaphysics, distinguished four kinds of without having to resort to post hoc ergo propter causes: the material, the formal, the efficient, and hoc (“after this therefore because of this”) the final. Some view a Platonic form as corre- historical narratives that, as someone has said, are sponding to what Aristotle called a formal cause, only limited by one’s imagination. On the other an abstract pattern that a physical entity manifests. hand, it permits descriptive and theoretical rigor to For me, though, a better way of understanding be introduced mainly by way of testable models. designs or forms is as paradeigmata or “models” In other words, the neo-Platonism that I am refer- as discussed by the philosopher Proclus in his ring to combines the vertical perspective of Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides. This is not Platonism with the horizontal experimental to imply that I think that there is an ideal eye or approach of Aristotle. vertebrate limb “out there” or that the If I’m still part of a dialogue—that is to say, if paradeigmata are the same as, say, the blueprint the other person has not gotten up and walked of a building. Not at all; rather, I conceptualize away perplexed or aggravated—then THE these forms as being like an equation for a trian- question is usually asked: “Where exactly do the gle—with every realized triangle reflecting that Platonic forms, or the transcendent structures as formula. you call them, come from?” On that question I can All of this may seem overly philosophical and safely say that Platonism and structuralism, espe- quite unfamiliar, judging from the reactions of cially the latter, enable one to remain agnostic.

HOW MY VIEWS ON EVOLUTION EVOLVED STERNBERG 10 Yet neither precludes holding that the structures on a plethora of information-rich codes that spell emanate from Nous (mind) or Logos (intellect). In out material components and how they can fact, to posit that the cosmos is intrinsically intel- interact. ligible because it reflects in some way Intelligence Before my partner-in-dialogue can depart, I Itself would place one in good philosophical com- interject that I am not a Paleyian in the sense that I pany, including such pagan “saints” as Iambli- believe in or look for some machine-like design. It chus, Philolaus, Plotinus, Proclus, Theon of is true that organisms display many machine-like Smyrna, the venerable and virginal Hypatia, and features. But the machine metaphor is less than much later, Gemmistos Plethon. fully satisfying in biology. One difference In the grand scheme of things, then, there is between organisms and machines is that biologi- no incompatibility whatsoever between subscrib- cal entities can be self-assembling whereas ing to neo-Pythagorean neo-Platonism as I do and machines need to be assembled by another agent, intelligent design in the broad sense; quite the contrary. Intelligent design of this variety clearly My position asserts that the has roots separate from the Bible. (And, needless cosmos is fundamentally to say, those who try to present the former as only the modern offshoot of scriptural literalism or of intelligible in such a way that it “red state” cultural ignorance are guilty of gross can be logically, mathematically, historical illiteracy.) Thus, my position asserts that and scientifically recognized to be the cosmos is fundamentally intelligible in such a such; and moreover… that the way that it can be logically, mathematically, and scientifically recognized to be such; and universe emanates from Nous moreover—following Proclus—that the universe (mind). So in this sense my emanates from Nous (mind). So in this sense my thinking is compatible with thinking is compatible with intelligent design intelligent design broadly defined. broadly defined. I earlier pointed out how a few simple and even if that agent is another machine. We see this beautiful mathematical rules can account for the when proteins, added to a test tube, spontaneously entire panorama of seashells we find in nature, arrange themselves into filaments, lattice-like corroborating the insight of structuralism that patterns of organization, quasi-crystals, and so biological organisms reflect certain underlying forth. Some cite these operations as examples of forms. But the problem for structuralism is that self-organization in the biological world, and they although seashell structures may reflect simple certainly are. But the very fact that these “smart mathematical rules, there is nothing simple about proteins” have the instructions and specifications the way seashells are actually built in nature. A for limited self-assembly built into them also pro- mollusk requires incredibly fine-tuned instructions vides evidence of their detailed design. on how to assemble its shell. What is true for Another reason why I avoid Paleyian or anti- mollusks is true throughout the biological world. Paleyian thinking is that it leads inexorably to The underlying forms may be simple and elegant, statements about what God would or would not but the instructions for assembling the structures do, as judged by human engineering standards. I are not. To instantiate that form in a living thing cannot emphasize the number of times that I have requires layer upon layer of specifications that listened to evolutionary biologists theologize on determine gene organization, how genes are the basis of some gnosis they have concerning expressed, how proteins interact in the cell, how divine actions. One case stands out in particular. cells come together in embryogenesis, and much Francis Collins, director of the National Human else. So development depends not only on struc- Genome Research Institute at the NIH, showed a tures that downwardly shape the embryo, but also small group that included me a presumably “dead

HOW MY VIEWS ON EVOLUTION EVOLVED STERNBERG 11 gene,” a pseudogene. Now his line of argumenta- cerning how God would or would not have tion went something like this: created, or concerning His specific artistic tastes, A. We know this pseudogene has no function nor does any other scientist. Certainly alignments and therefore no purpose; of DNA sequences cannot tell us this. To be fair, B. We know also that God would not make however, Paleyian creationism is just as irre- functionless, purposeless objects; sponsible in this respect. Its conception of God ∴ God had no role in the creation of the seems to be the same as the one just mentioned, pseudogene—it was a random event. save that the aim is to demonstrate that what is Based on my conversation with Collins, it asserted by a Darwin, Dawkins, or Dennett to be a became apparent to me cosmic Ed Wood that his god is a strict, production is actually a nineteenth century Cecile B. DeMille “cast of utilitarian who would, if thousands” work. he deigned to create, Regardless, theologizing manufacture only highly should not be palmed off as efficient and minimalist solid empirical entities. His deity would investigation and that is only provide evidence of why I eschew thinking his handiwork by means along such lines. of Bauhaus-like architectures, as Baroque THIS past year I or Rococo designs would be, well, excessive and decided to become a research fellow with the wasteful. A purposeful, intelligently designed cell Biologic Institute in , made possible by a would, judging from his points, resemble ever so research fellowship from the Discovery Institute. much Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. And since what we Certain Darwinist detractors will no doubt shout “I so often observe are over-the-top excrescences told you so!” upon hearing news of this, since and strings of DNA that just don’t seem to have a some of them alleged—falsely—that I was a closet purpose—bad, sloppy “design” to Collins’s way IDer working for the Discovery Institute at the of thinking—we know, we know—as a scientific time the Meyer paper was published in 2004. fact no less—that the genome is randomly The truth is that I only received a research cobbled together in length and breadth and all the fellowship from Discovery to work at Biologic way up and down. (We’re not off the hook, after I resigned from the NIH in 2007. I had grown though, for this god of his, while having no divine profoundly tired of intellectually swimming knowledge of a cell, is nonetheless the supreme upstream at both the Smithsonian and the NIH. moralist who is keeping track of our slightest Condemnation for my past “indiscretions” coupled sins.) with attempts to pigeonhole me in existing crea- The reason I mention this is that so often the tionist/evolutionist categories, not to mention the anti-Paleyian rhetoric that is rampant in the refusal by many to hear me out, sharply literature on evolution slips and slides into god circumscribed my freedom of intellectual and talk. This god talk is invariably anthropomorphic, scientific inquiry. I was tired of being scrutinized meaning that its content runs something like “I and monitored and questioned and blamed. I was would not have done it this way, therefore god tired of being told that my structuralism reduced to would not have done it this way.” It is also an “creationism” by those who have no understanding extension of a decadent eighteenth and nineteenth of either. (By the way, my taxonomy peers at the century Christianity wherein the most arid deism NIH did not behave this way and, at least from my was combined with a most unattractive and legal- perspective, we all got along splendidly.) Hence, I istic moralism. I for one have no knowledge con- made the decision to leave Washington DC, to

HOW MY VIEWS ON EVOLUTION EVOLVED STERNBERG 12 move to Florida, to think my thoughts in peace, My current research focuses on increasing our and try to get back into research. But then the pos- understanding of the causal relationships between sibility of working with Biologic presented itself the genotype and the phenotype, or DNA specifi- last year. cations on the one hand and the morphological The foremost question I raised before accept- groundpattern on the other. ing the position concerned my intellectual free- Specific research projects include examining dom: Would I have greater freedom at the so-called “non-coding” chromosomal sequences Biologic Institute to pursue the scientific evidence for the codes that they contain, and the ontogenetic wherever I thought it led? Or would I face a whole information that they bear. Most and perhaps all new series of litmus tests, this time from intelli- DNA in complex genomes such as those of gent design proponents rather than from doctri- mammals are transcribed, although only a small naire Darwinists? I was assured that no such fraction of these specify proteins. The complex limitations would be imposed. My next query organization and controlled expression of these turned to the kind of research that would be asked non-translated, RNA-encoding elements suggests of me, and I was assured that would be left up to that an array of encrypted “texts” awaits me. After weighing the various options, I said yes. discovery. And those promises have been kept.

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